Your communications to the Count de Moustier, whatever they may have
been, cannot have done injury to my endeavors here, to open the West
Indies to us. On this head, the ministers are invincibly mute, though I
have often tried to draw them into the subject. I have therefore found
it necessary to let it lie, till war, or other circumstances, may force
it on. Whenever they are in war with England, they must open the islands
to us, and perhaps, during that war, they may see some price which might
make them agree to keep them always open. In the mean time, I have laid
my shoulder to the opening the markets of this country to our produce,
and rendering its transportation a nursery for our seamen. A maritime
force is the only one, by which we can act on Europe. Our navigation law
(if it be wise to have any) should be the reverse of that of England.
Instead of confining importations to home-bottoms, or those of
the producing nation, I think we should confine exportations to
home-bottoms, or to those of nations having treaties with us. Our
exportations are heavy, and would nourish a great force of our own,
or be a tempting price to the nation to whom we should offer a
participation of it, in exchange for free access to all their
possessions.
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